Month: May 2007

• First off, I love when the weather gets nicer and then you can switch your gas furnace off and leave the windows open. It’s in between those days where you want to put the Central A/C on. Case in point, the gas bill came in yesterday for a whopping $4.21. Awesome.
• Let’s not forget that Palmer’s Automatic Savings Withdrawls really pulled through for the first time this year when his property tax bill came in. I don’t get it automatically taken off from my mortgage payment so I can accumulate the interest on the $2000+ in the bank. Instead of scrambling for the next few weeks to find some serious cash, I just simply paid the bill off in full from the money I slowly put away throughout the year! Yeeha!
• The Canadian Dollar is worth a lot of cashola. In Canada, it’s still a dollar, but outside of Canada, I can buy things cheaper. Hello Amazon.com!

I was betting good money that this police alert had something to do with my car getting broken into until I read the alert. HILARIOUS.

http://www.ottawapolice.ca/en/serving_ottawa/media_room/news.cfm?nr_id=4325

Krista and I were talking about some daily routines that we all have – in our particular conversation, websites we visit at least once a day (and in my case, in a specific order when the day begins).

First Website – Google Mail before I leave the house (just in case there’s that great email saying I am worth a gazillion dollars).
Then…
ChartAttack – Canada’s own music source for all the latest and greatest. It’s a good fast read. Sometimes there’s good stuff, sometimes it’s a bust. But they do highlight the new releases of the week. Boom.
ComingSoon.net – An excellent source for up-to-date movie information.
Dark Horizons – Another excellent movie information site. Although by the time I’m done reading ComingSoon.net, this site really isn’t needed. But I do enjoy when their Random Spiel column comes up which has various tidbits of information.
Canoe.ca’s JAM! Showbiz Entertainment Section – Another excellent Canadian site of entertainment information. I start from the top of the topic list and run down – Music, Movies, Television, Video.
Ottawa Sun – Hey, you have to look to the locals to see what’s going on in your territory! I really just browse through this and don’t spend too much time.
Canada.com – You never know what’s happening around your country until you visit canada.com
Gizmodo – An excellent source for gadget news. This is updated around the clock so I visit this throughout the day for any good updates.
Life Hacker – Lifehacker is a pretty cool site which has tips that will let you enjoy your life a little more (but mainly revolves around technology. Heck technology IS life. Debate that one.)
NME.com – For all around good music information, but focusses on our friends across the seas. New Music Express sometimes gets a bad rap from other music sites, but whatever. It is updated a few times a day which is crucial in the fast moving rock scene.
Nine Inch Nails Hotline – Hey, you never know what Trent Reznor is up to…better check it out here.
TrekWeb – Everyone knows there’s a new Star Trek movie coming out so it’s good to check out the updates!
Netphoria Forums – For all the latest updates of Smashing Pumpkins news.

Other than that, there are random other ones I check:
My Friend’s Blogs – Which have become a ghost town since Facebook moved into town (or they are bored with blogging?)
My own site to see if I got any comments.
Apple Mac Computer Sites – Anything to do with the coolest computers ever.
Star Wars sites – Natch.

What are some sites you check out daily? Post them here!

iplaying: 22: The Death of All The Romance – The Dears (No Cities Left)

My car got broken into last week (more on that later…) but I realized some things after talking with my insurance company.

Now, for those of you who don’t know already, chances are your house insurance covers your possessions which are stolen from inside your car, whereas your car insurance covers the ACTUAL car.

Now that we have that out of the way, when I was talking with the representative from my home insurance company she asked the fateful question “Well, have you thought about having your car insurance through us as well?“.

Of course I have. But I could get it for $50/mth cheaper at another company so I opted for that.

But she left me something to think about.

“Well don’t forget that in a case like this, you would only have to pay ONE deductible to cover both your car damage as well as your possessions which were stolen, but with two separate insurance providers you will have to pay both deductibles.“

Hmm…this was a very, very excellent point that I had never thought of.

Let’s be honest here…I was never one to really think about my insurance. I was more of the ‘Give me the lowest quote you can which covers what I want and you have a client.” I’m sure there are a lot of you out there.

Here are the things that are crawling through my mind right now in terms of insurance:

• Deductibles – You know, I had a $500 deductible for my home insurance but that really doesn’t help out your cause if you don’t have $500 worth of possessions that are stolen. Sure, there would be extreme examples such as your entire house burns down, but take a look at your specific case of a vehicle. You would have to have a lot of big ticket items stolen out of your car to warrant paying $500 to get them back. Off the top of my head, I am thinking a laptop, some high end stereo equipment or about 25 CDs. Maybe some tools? I could go on with hypotheticals but the case in point here is – You should have your deductible be worth your while. I have just put in a request to ask for a lower deductible. I am going to make an assumption (and someone can provide me with the correct information at any time) that the lower the deductible, the higher you will pay in a monthly fee. Am I correct? Why else would they have different levels of deductibles? I’m sure EVERYONE would LOVE to have the lowest deductible available. So now it becomes a cost comparison. If I opt for the $300 deductible, how much more a year is that in monthly payments? If it is extremely more, then it probably isn’t worth it. But if it’s only $50 more, then you are laughing. Feel free to throw any other information that can be good when looking at insurance.

• Combining insurance – Here’s another classic example of cost comparison. Even if my car insurance company comes backs and indicates that by combining my house insurance it would cost me more than the other house insurance provider – I have to compare the case of how much the two deductibles would cost together, as well as the gamble I wish to put on that instance happening. I am going to say right now that Palmer feels his car has a greater chance of getting broken into then his own house. This factors in some variables such as the area I live in as well as the area I usually park my car. So in my case, I am thinking it’s probably worth my while to combine the two even if it will come out a little extra…

• But in the end of it all, what’s your insurance there for anyhow? We all know the classic curse – “Claim something and your premiums MAY go up!“. Krista brought up some good points at lunch today saying that the reason she has the $500 deductible is that it lowers her premiums and the odds are that she would rather shell out the cash out of her own pocket under $500 to fix something rather than make a claim and have her premiums go up. One can assume that people choosing the higher deductible are banking on worst-case scenarios (aka you total your car or your house burns down).

There’s a heck of a lot of factors to ponder when thinking about insurance. I think at the very least I am going to look at combining my insurance into one company in the case that if I do have to pay a deductible, then it’s just a one-shot deal.

Stay tuned for more info. Share some thoughts in the comments section! I’m sure everyone has their own views on insurance.

Oh yeah, if you’re one of those people out there that don’t have insurance. Don’t be left out in the cold like Cameron who’s girlfriend torched his house and all he had left were the clothes on his back, his cat and his Jeep. That’s just plain dumb.

Late Friday night, Carrie, Philipp, Vero and I rolled into Toronto. After some meager directions brought to us by Mapquest, we got to Miguel and Katie’s place looking for a good time. The good time began when we decided to watch Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2 in one sitting that night.

Let’s put this into perspective. It is already midnight when we arrive. I have been driving all the way there so I am little zonked. But we need to prepare ourselves for the onslaught tomorrow – the Evil Dead Musical!

People died off through Evil Dead 2 and I must admit that Philipp had to park my ass back down in the couch near the ending of Evil Dead 2 as I was ready for bed. We did manage to watch them both and went to bed victorious.

The next day we meandered around Toronto just doing little chores here and there – mainly looking for a nice white t-shirt to wear to the Evil Dead Musical.

Evil Dead is a movie which came out in 1981 and it follows a group of students who go to a cabin in the woods. Unfortunately, these woods are haunted and soon enough everyone becomes zombies. No worries – we have the lead character Ash (played by Bruce Campbell) who can take care of all his Deadite friends, along with the help of a sawed-off shotgun (his boomstick), a chainsaw on his hand and great facial expressions. Let’s not forget the great one-liners.

The movie spawned off two sequels (the second being more campier than the first, then the third being the campiest of all) and has had a cult following throughout the world.

Fast forward to 2003 when an Evil Dead Musical was created in Toronto and then moved to New York. In the past year we’ve been talking about maybe heading to New York City to see this spectacle but the stars aligned for us and it came back to Toronto for a bit.

Carrie managed to grab every Evil Dead fan she knows and we ended up having 15+ people go to the show. We started off the afternoon well with a great BBQ hosted by Miguel and Katie. The food was great, the company was great, weather was decent also. Let’s see…for archive purposes I’ll try and remember everyone that was there – Carrie, Philipp, Lucas, Andrew, Myself, Vero, Beth, Tom, Kris, Katie, Miguel, Adrianna, Tyler and Megan. Yeah, that’s about right.

We hopped into some cabs (as we figured we may miss the show taking the subway at the late hour) and arrived to the Diesel Playhouse. Outside the Playhouse I noticed a slew of people putting on their white t-shirts.

Why are wearing white t-shirts? Well, we managed to buy tickets inside the SPLATTER ZONE, where you most likely will get some blood on you (if you’re lucky!). That’s right, blood. Sure, it’s fake (or is it?) but I’m sure it’ll be a good time.

We walk into the playhouse and check out the merchandise ($60 for an autographed poster? No thanks!) and realize we can drink alcohol in the theatre! This isn’t your average musical! We head into the theatre (where I get berated by the ticket-taker lady for not listening) and we find ourselves taking up the entire second row centre! Excellent seats!

The musical starts and it’s a laugh-fest from that point on. The actors are amazing, the tunes are hilarious and the stage set up is well thought out. It is everything we needed it to be. Every funny part of the Evil Dead series is put into this musical and then some. (at this point I’m going to talk about specific scenes of the Evil Dead series so if you don’t know them, go watch them!) We have Ash chopping off his evil hand and while doing so a squirt of blood is coming out so he puts his face into the stream a few times just to get his face more bloody. We also have some great zombie costume ideas. The scene where the trees attack one of the women was amazingly thought out for the stage production – they had the girl running away with the three other actors dressed up as as trees and they run on the spot after her. Then she takes a tumble and they advance but she gets back up and they go backwards. Very cool scene.

Intermission hit and Tom proclaims that this is way better than he thought it would be. There is mad dash to find some ponchos as the blood hasn’t started spurting yet. Adrianna gets berated by one of the staff after asking for a poncho – “Why did you buy tickets for the Splatter Zone if you can’t handle it?!“. A guy eventually comes around with some ponchos. Vero told me afterwards that she was disappoitned she didn’t bring her own white t-shirt to the party. Next time, Vero. Next time.

The anticipation is high when the second half begins. I don’t know what to expect. Will it be a full on bloodbath? Does it depend on where we are sitting? I was sitting pretty well in the center of the row…what’s going to happen?

The musical continues and we see our first sign of blood. It spews out of the trapdoor on the stage floor onto the left splatter zone section. A tease really! You can already see the division in the splatter zone – those who love it and those who hate it. Another blood fest begins when a zombie takes a beer cup full of blood and throws it into the audience.

At this point I am thinking that it’s not that big of a deal and there is only a slim chance we will get hit by anything substantial.

Then it begins. Ash sings his way into Deadite killing mayhem. This part of the night is an entire blur to me as blood starts spewing out in full force on the left and right sides. I see friends of mine getting hit with the onslaught. Poor Beth loses a contact lens due to the blood hitting her eye! Kris looks like Carrie from Stephen King after getting a bucketful in the face. It is terror all around!

We’re starting to get some major spurts here and there. Andrew is one of those people who are hating the moment and you can hear him scream “No, NOOO!” when he gets some blood coming at him.

Then it happens. Ash rips a heart out of a zombie right in front of us which explodes into a gush of blood coming for us! I raise my arm in fear of losing my entire face to the onslaught of red stuff! I am soaked. I think I got the worst of the entire crew actually. Philipp was kind of disappinted with the amount he received and Carrie didn’t have any at all on her. I have no idea why I thought my shoes and jeans would be safe from this carnage, but it wasn’t. It was everywhere. Miguel said the blood that hit him had soaked through to his underwear.

As we sat in happiness of the moment, the musical quickly ended and we cheered and cheered again! This was an event not to be missed.

If you are not liking the idea of fake blood hitting you, then no worries. There are plenty of seats outside the Splatter Zone. I highly recommend this musical for anyone who will like a good cheesy comedy night. I enjoyed it so much that I want to go back again right now. If anything, I may be up for an annual trek (if it remains that long). Phantom of the Opera, eat your heart out.

After the musical, we headed to the Underground Garage which was an excellent rock bar. The place is plastered with polaroids, vintage rock n’ roll posters and bras hanging from the ceiling. We owned the dance floor and we had a most excellent night. Many fond memories, but my fave is this:

Carrie – Do you have any Timberlake? DJ – Lady, this is a rock bar!

Highlights of the Night:

• Carrie telling off some lady who was yelling at us for being too loud. It was justified – Carrie said “Sorry.” the first time but the lady just kept yelling at us. That’s not cool.
• Miguel passing out in the cab and waking up to give the cabbie the wrong directions home, then waking up later to wonder why the cabbie is going the wrong way.
• Philipp sleeping in the bathroom.
• The sheer awesome music which was being played. I love rock.

Thanks to Miguel and Katie for the excellent time in Toronto and special thanks goes out to Carrie for picking up those wonderful tickets.

My good friend Phil who lives in Montreal has a sweet air flight deal site starting up which will list the greatest of greatest deals there ever was (or the ones he can actually find for you!)

Take a look at his site and also note that it will always be on the menu bar to the right in case you ever feel like going for a flight to Turkey anytime soon!

http://www.airplusplus.com/montreal/

iplaying: Muzzle – The Smashing Pumpkins (1995-02-28 Double Door – Chicago IL)

How has my day been so far?

Pretty sweet.

I took the day off and it’s a beaut outside. I started the day by watching the season finale of Smallville. Very cool…very…bizarre (this is for all those who don’t like being spoiled).

I then headed out to The Brick to pick up a few armchairs for Vero and Melanie (Vero’s new roommate) but they didn’t have them in stock so they’ll be in on Tuesday. They looked pretty swank.

Then I headed out to Blackburn and dropped by Lynn and Sue’s pad but they weren’t home (well, I suppose that isn’t a huge surprise being a working day) so I headed to one of the greatest pubs in the world – the Blackburn Arms.

Sat myself at the patio, ordered a beer and some fish and chips and started reading the newspaper where I realized I forgot an important birthday today!

Star Wars turned 30 today. This is a huge day. In fact, I find there is more emphasis put on the age 30 than 25.

There’s not a whole lot that I can say about Star Wars that I haven’t said before. I thoroughly enjoy the movies, they really made an impact on me and I’m glad to see that there is still A LOT happening with the legacy.

There. That’s it! I’m sure you were expecting more. You should watch Star Wars tonight just for old times sake.

iplaying: Blew Away – The Smashing Pumpkins (1995-02-28 Double Door, Chicago IL)

As I noticed my underwear one day, I was thinking “What does the name Fruit of the Loom actually mean?”

So I went to Wikipedia and found this bit of trivia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fruit_of_the_loom

The name “Fruit of the Loom” is interpreted by many as a play on words with respect to a part of the Hail Mary prayer: “…blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.” (cf. Gospel of Luke 1:42) The two phrases are unrelated: it is merely a coincidence that “womb” rhymes with “loom”.

iplaying: Drugstore – Stabbing Westward (Darkest Days)

Maren wishes that I write a new blog entry so she can live vicariously through me so I guess I’ll have to post about…new things?

Let’s talk about Maren for a moment. Right now, she is probably in the midst of insane wedding preparations. As someone pointed out the other day, the first 25 invitations are fun to do, the rest of them are a chore. 😉 Hence, my belief in using evite.com to send out wedding invitations! Anyhow, Maren is working in another office since December and from what I’ve heard she is doing well although working downtown probably doesn’t help her wallet that much. I know I would be upping my spending if I worked downtown!

Nothing has been going on in my life that is of importance. Although, the Pumpkins community has hit overdrive as they played their first concert in seven years yesterday in Paris. I was here for the action around 2:30 in the afternoon. All Pumpkins message boards crumbled under the weight of people refreshing their screens to see any more information on the set list. Our only outlet was a single blog set up to give us pictures uploaded from someone’s cellphone. It was amazing. It was so…raw. I can’t really explain how I felt to hear that the Pumpkins were actually back on stage. I am awaiting the bootleg of the show – soon.

Yesterday I went with Vero to pick up a used desk. I personally think it’s a sweet desk, and they threw the office chair in for free (with just reason. It’s a craptacular chair). We found it on usedottawa.com. If you have never gone on this site, check it out! Its better than the Glebe Garage Sale.

Speaking about the Glebe Garage Sale, its on this Saturday which is very unfortunate for Vero and I as we will be in Toronto to catch the Evil Dead Musical. 🙁 Very disappointed as the Garage Sale is somewhat of a memory for us as this was where our first date took place. That’s right, Palmer knows how to treat a lady right. If any of my faithful readers haven’t been to the Glebe Garage Sale before, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! Overall, I can’t say I’ve ever found anything amazing at the garage sale, but if you go for one item in your mind, chances are you will find it there. Case in point, I found a weedwacker last year for $2. Beauty.

I am sporting a white dress shirt today (purchase for the Prom I went to a few weeks ago) and it’s the first time I’ve sported the white shirt at work. The question that arises when wearing the white dress shirt is this:

Should you wear an undershirt?

At first, I thought no because maybe my hairy chest would be visible and that ain’t cool. So I scavenged through my drawer to discover an old white t-shirt. I threw that on but noticed the collar was falling apart. With that idea in hand, I figured I should go without it. But as soon as I put the shirt on without an undershirt, I heard the cries of fashionable women everywhere (Maren and Krista, I bow to you) saying that this is a no-no.

How to get out of this quandary? Well, that’s what I have a roommate for. With any luck, there will be a fresh undershirt waiting for me in the dryer. Sure enough, the planets were aligned and Mike had a few undershirts waiting there. By the way Mike, I have one of your undershirts.

The story of undershirts brings up this interesting part of The Rebel Sell which spoke about years ago when men wore the same shirt for numerous days but wore a new undershirt every day. It makes sense, but nowadays there is a stigma attached to doing so. Why is this? Well the clothing industry jumped on the bandwagon of different colour shirts and changed the way shirts were worn and it wasn’t COOL to wear the same shirt twice in a work week, so they ended up making more cash in the long run by selling more shirts! Very shrewd. Interesting how a clothing change can influence the way a society thinks (“Ew, you’re wearing the same shirt TWICE?!”)

So another question about undershirts is this – clearly I have not worn an undershirt with my other dress shirts, but should I? What is the etiquette on the undershirt? Clearly it is needed for the white dress shirt…but what about the others?

My colleague is selling XBOX games for $5 each. Here’s a listing. Let me know if you’re interested in any of them.

– Counter Strike – online enabled
– Hitman: Contracts
– Star Wars: The Clone Wars – online enabled
– Medal of Honor Frontline
– Pac Man World 2
– Dead to Rights
– Gunvalkyrie
– Ralli Sprot Challenge
– Enclave
– Oddworld Munch`s Oddysee
– Kung Fu Chaos
– Starsky & Hutch
– State of Emergency
– Burnout 3: Takedown
– Rainbow Six 3 – online enabled
– Conflict: Desert Storm
– 007 Agent Under Fire
– American Chopper
– Project Gotham Racing
– Malice
– Gun Valkyrie
– Mad Dash Racing
– Battle Engine Aquila
– Apex
– Dark Summit
– Tony Hawk`s Underground
– Night Caster: Defeat the Darkness
– Splinter Cell: Stealth Action Redefined
– Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
– Pisoner of War
– BRAND NEW STILL IN PKGING – X2 Wolverine`s Revenge
– Star Wars the Clone Wars and Tetris World – online enabled
– Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick
– Monster Garage – online enabled
– Spider-man
– Azurik: Rise of Perathia
– Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers
– Dead to Rights
– Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
– NFL 2K3 – online enabled
– XSN Sports Top Spin – online enabled
– XSN Sports Links 2004 – online enabled
– Thirteen – online enabled
– Buffy the Vampire Slayer
– Enter the Matrix
– Syberia
– NFL Street
– Brute Force
– SpyHunter
– Blood Wake
– Rayman Arena
– Mission: Impossible M:I Operation Surma
– Ghost Recon – online enabled
– Dave Mirra Freestyle BMX 2
– NBA 2003 Inside Drive
– Rally Fusion
– The Thing
– Drag Racing 2004 – online enabled
– Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance
– Invisible War
– All Star Baseball 2003
– Terminator: Dawn of Fate
– BMX XXX
– NFL Fever 2004 – online enabled
– Unreal II The Awakening – online enabled
– Tao Feng
– Reign of Fire
– Turok: Evolution
– Max Payne
– Kill Switch
– Red Dead Revolver
– Wreckless – The YaKuza Missions
– 007 Agent Under Fire
– UEFA Euro 2004 Portugal
– Crazy Taxi 3: High Roller
– Shenmue II
– RLH: Hunt or be hunted
– Night Caster II
– Cell Damage
– Genma Onimusha
– NCAA Football 2004
– Test Drive
– Solder of Fortune II
– Panzer Dragoon
– Amped Freestyle Snowboarding
– Unreal Championship
– Max Payne 2
– Transworld Snow Boarding
– Fuzion Frenzy
– Big Mutha Truckers
– Rogue Ops
– Tenchu – Return from Darkness
– Project Gothan Racing 2 – online enabled
– Jetset Radio Future